These elements are characteristic of Kurosawa:
1. Movies about men (samurai and businessmen). Kurosawa was a macho director. Unlike other prominent Japanese directors such as Mizoguchi, Naruse and Ozu, women played a minor role in his films (the only exception being the early No Regret for Our Youth).
2. Humanism
3. Technique
- Use of long lenses
- Influence on silent film
- Static formalism from Red Beard on (in all later films)
Kurosawa's career can be divided as follows:
1. 1940s: the early films (war and immediate post-war years)
Sanshiro Sugata is a judo film that glorifies the wartime "hard school" of training among macho men - such men should not be "weakened" by women, so there is not even a kiss between Sanshiro and his girlfriend. The Most Beautiful is the kind of cheap propaganda film that could have been made in Mao's China or Stalin's Soviet Union. One Wonderful Sunday is full of Hollywood bathos. In fact, the best film Kurosawa made during this period was the Kabuki-film The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail, which however wasn't released until many years after it was shot.
2. 1950-1963: the great films
3. 1965-1993: the late movies
In conclusion, I think Kurosawa is somewhat overrated, especially in the West. But he did make a number of wonderful films - such as those listed up below.
The ten best films by Kurosawa are:
1. Stray Dog (Nora inu, 1949)
Nora Inu ("Stray Dog") is about a young policeman (Mifune Toshiro) whose gun is stolen and used to kill someone. He goes almost crazy to get it back and runs all over Tokyo. His superior (Shimura Takeshi) gives him moral support. The movie shows that in a more individualistic society you have to bear the consequences of your actions. The last part is an almost documentary-style chase film in which the hunter and the hunted (both ex-soldiers) become more and more alike. With its visual innovation and themes of obsession, doppelgangers, and post-war chaos, this is one of the greatest films Kurosawa ever made.2. Rashomon (1950)
An innovative period drama that questions the nature of memory: four contradictory and incompatible eyewitness accounts of the same rape-murder incident show that the witnesses are only concerned with their own pride (or, in Japanese, "face"). The truth cannot be known because the movie registers all four accounts in the same realistic way. This was contrary to what Japanese audiences expected, as movies had always told them what to think and what reality to believe in. The audience was confused, but that was Kurosawa's intention, as he wanted the Japanese to become stronger individuals who could think for themselves and make up their own minds after their passivity during the war years. The movie ends with a humanistic message when the woodcutter who witnessed the crime decides to raise a foundling as his own child. Despite being a "difficult" film, Rashomon was a financial success in Japan, being the fourth highest grossing of the fifty-two films released by Daiei in 1950. After winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival the following year, Rashomon was released to great acclaim in the U.S. and other countries. The film had been invited to the festival without Kurosawa's knowledge, and no Japanese were present. Even Daiei president Nagata was surprised (he had no faith in this difficult film), but he smelled money and in the following years would consciously make films aimed at foreign film festivals, trying to repeat the success of Rashomon; other studios would follow suit. The movie also marked the breakthrough of actor Toshiro Mifune. See my detailed review.3. Ikiru (1952)
Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru wins the Kinema Junpo Award for best film of the year. It is Kurosawa's clearest and most compassionate statement of his existential humanism, in the story of a dying bureaucrat, Watanabe, who bypasses bureaucracy to help others and give his life meaning, even by doing one small good. Previously, he had been so immersed in his small daily routine that he had never learned to live. Probably Kurosawa's greatest achievement, quiet and contemplative. The first half of the movie gives us Watanabe's inner state in a straightforward plot, the second half fragments the story into flashbacks, as the various colleagues at Watanabe's funeral review his struggle through their eyes - failing to give him any credit for his efforts to build a playground in a small wasteland in a poor part of town. Shimura Takeshi gives a great performance as Watanabe - his big, pleading eyes and his hangdog face are unforgettable. Won the Special Prize at the 1954 Berlin International Film Festival.4. Seven Samurai (Shichinin no Samurai, 1954)
The greatest samurai movie ever made, a thrilling three-hour epic. In this seamless fusion of philosophy and entertainment, seven ragged samurai set out to protect a poor farming village from bandit raids in exchange for nothing more than room and board. They win after stunning battle scenes in the rain and mud (though three of their number are killed), but find that the real winners are the farmers, who no longer need them and want them gone so they can get on with their normal lives - leaving the samurai to wonder about the meaning of life. Daily life, in this case the cycle of seasons with its agricultural activities, is more important than winning a war, than friendship, even than love. Won the Silver Lion at the 1954 Venice Film Festival.
5. Throne of Blood (Kumonosujo, 1957)
Shakespeare's Macbeth transported to medieval Japan and the slopes of Mt Fuji and brought to the screen with interesting elements from the Noh theater. Very stylized cinematic technique. Strong performances by Mifune as the hardened, animalistic warrior and Yamada Isuzu as his ruthless wife. Set in an unforgettable ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape. Arguably, the best Shakespeare adaptation ever made.
6. The Hidden Fortress
Kurosawa Akira's "The Hidden Fortress" is an entertaining period movie set during the civil wars of the sixteenth century. Two clownish peasants help a young princess and her faithful retainer travel incognito through a war-torn region in exchange for gold, not knowing that he is a general and the woman is a princess. Kurosawa's pioneering film in the widescreen format, which he uses to great advantage, and his biggest box-office success of the fifties. This fast-paced, meticulously staged adventure was a major influence on George Lucas' Star Wars, particularly in its technique of telling the story from the perspective of the film's lowest characters. Almost all of the major characters from Star Wars have clear analogues in The Hidden Fortress, including the princess. Berlin Film Festival Director's Award.
7. The Bad Sleep Well (Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru, 1960)
An attack on the collusion between big business and the government, a great social problem film (shakai-mono) with noir overtones and a very dark ending. After all, it was 1960 (the year of the big demonstrations against the renewal of the security treaty with the USA) and rebellion against the authorities was in the air. A man (Mifune Toshiro) hides his identity to expose corruption in a construction company with government ties and to avenge the forced suicide of his father. Some elements of Hamlet have been incorporated into the story - there is even a kind of ghost. Mori Masayuki plays the boss and Kagawa Kyoko his crippled daughter. Very suspenseful drama. Marks the debut of Kurosawa's own production company - Kurosawa's films were more expensive than those of other directors at Toho and the studio asked him to step in as co-producer. Included in the 11th Berlin International Film Festival. This movie may be less known, but it is certainly not a lesser Kurosawa.8. Yojimbo & Sanjuro
Yojimbo is a hard-boiled Western in samurai garb that would inspire countless Westerns, including Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars. A thoroughly amoral ronin (Mifune) arrives in a small town where competing crime lords vie for supremacy. The two bosses each try to hire the newcomer as a bodyguard, and the ronin sardonically plays both sides, encouraging the bad guys to wipe each other out. Full of brutal and subversive humor, as in the grotesque opening shot of a dog holding a severed human hand in its mouth. The film's dynamic energy explodes in the finale, a duel with a gun-toting gangster (Nakadai Tatsuya). A well-deserved Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival for Mifune Toshiro. Yojimbo did what Seven Samurai had not yet been able to do: it dealt the deathblow to Toei's soft-hearted, warm, family-like period films (a style that was now moving to TV).
By the way, Toho sued Sergio Leone for copyright infringement, as A Fistful of Dollars was effectively an unofficial and unlicensed remake of Kurosawa's film (the matter was eventually settled out of court). Leone, by the way, claimed that both films were based on two earlier, alternative sources that neither of them had acknowledged: both films were partly derived from Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest (1929), but mostly from Carlo Goldoni's eighteenth-century play Servant of Two Masters (according to British critic Sir Christopher Frayling). The basic premise of Goldoni's play is that the protagonist plays two camps against each other. The plot of Servant of Two Masters can also be seen in Hammett's detective novel Red Harvest. Significantly, the Continental Op hero of the novel is a man "without a name" - like Mifune in Yojimbo.
A kind of sequel to Yojimbo was Tsubaki Sanjuro ("Sanjuro"): the same hero as in Kurosawa's previous film acts as a mentor to a group of nine idealistic young samurai who try to root out corruption in the clan administration. Most of the movie is a light-hearted black comedy, but the final confrontation ends with an impossible "fountain of blood" that would become the beginning of over-the-top violence in genre films. From now on, the floodgates of blood would be open. Together with Yojimbo, Tsubaki Sanjuro started the genre of "gruesome period films" (zankoku jidaigeki).
By the way, Toho sued Sergio Leone for copyright infringement, as A Fistful of Dollars was effectively an unofficial and unlicensed remake of Kurosawa's film (the matter was eventually settled out of court). Leone, by the way, claimed that both films were based on two earlier, alternative sources that neither of them had acknowledged: both films were partly derived from Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest (1929), but mostly from Carlo Goldoni's eighteenth-century play Servant of Two Masters (according to British critic Sir Christopher Frayling). The basic premise of Goldoni's play is that the protagonist plays two camps against each other. The plot of Servant of Two Masters can also be seen in Hammett's detective novel Red Harvest. Significantly, the Continental Op hero of the novel is a man "without a name" - like Mifune in Yojimbo.
A kind of sequel to Yojimbo was Tsubaki Sanjuro ("Sanjuro"): the same hero as in Kurosawa's previous film acts as a mentor to a group of nine idealistic young samurai who try to root out corruption in the clan administration. Most of the movie is a light-hearted black comedy, but the final confrontation ends with an impossible "fountain of blood" that would become the beginning of over-the-top violence in genre films. From now on, the floodgates of blood would be open. Together with Yojimbo, Tsubaki Sanjuro started the genre of "gruesome period films" (zankoku jidaigeki).
9. High and Low (Tengoku to jigoku, 1963)
A thriller in which shoe magnate Gondo (Mifune) learns that his son has been kidnapped. An outrageous ransom is demanded that will surely bankrupt the businessman. Then the son is discovered at home, unharmed - by mistake the kidnapper took the chauffeur's son. But the ransom remains the same, and Gondo is faced with a moral dilemma: should he still pay the bankrupting ransom, even now that his own son is no longer involved? This first part takes place in "Heaven", Gondo's huge mansion on a hill in Yokohama. The second half of the movie is set in "Hell" (Yokohama's poor and wild downtown) and shows the police investigation, as usual in Japan, conducted by a large group of detectives working together as a team (the chief detective is played by Nakadai Tatsuya). In the finale, Gondo confronts the kidnapper (Yamazaki Tsutomu), who has been sentenced to death for killing two of his colleagues, in prison in a harrowing scene. The motivation for the crime was envy - the kidnapper, a poor intern at a hospital, had to look up from his poor hovel at the Gondo Mansion, which stands proudly on the hill above the city. Loosely based on a novel by Ed McBain (King's Ransom, 1959).10. Ran (1985)
Ran by Kurosawa Akira is a monumental movie that transports Shakespeare's King Lear to 16th-century Japan: an elderly lord (superbly played by Nakadai Tatsuya) abdicates to his three sons, two of whom turn against him. Actor Peter (of Funeral Parade of Roses fame) plays the transvestite jester, and there is a Mahleresque score by Takemitsu Toru. A majestic and monumental movie that shows the scourge of greed and the thirst for power, as well as the folly of war. Among the many awards Ran received, Wada Emi won an Oscar for Best Costume Design.
Studies about Kurosawa:
- The Films of Akira Kurosawa, by Donald Richie (Revised edition, University of California Press, 1984)
- The Warrior's Cinema, by Stephen Price (Princeton University Press, 1991)
- Kurosawa, Film Studies and Japanese Cinema, by Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto (Duke University Press, 2000)
- Kurosawa's Rashomon, by Paul Anderer (Pegasus Books, 2016)
- Waiting on the Weather, by Nogami Teruyo (Stone Bridge Press, 2006)
- Something Like an Autobiography, by Akira Kurosawa (Vintage Books, 1983)